Jenna Petersen - [Lady Spies] (13 page)

And then Lucas touched her at the spot where their bodies were locked. His thumb bore down on the button of her pleasure and she bit back a scream of pleasure as her body began to tremble and tremor around his. He seemed to have been waiting for that moment, for her release, because his spine stiffened and he growled out a low, feral sound of pleasure before he pumped hot into her sheath, then collapsed down on top of her, panting.

Ana put her arms around him and held tight, smoothing her palms across the strong planes of his back. He felt…right. Making love to him had felt right, lying tangled in his arms felt right. A sense of peace, contentment washed over her. A feeling unlike any she’d ever felt before.

She stiffened at that thought. That couldn’t be true. She had been at peace with her husband. He had pleased her. She loved him with all her heart. How could she compare what had just happened with Lucas to her life with Gilbert…and have her marriage come up short?

All the worries and fears she had set aside while Lucas touched her came rushing back in one horrible moment. She had always believed if she allowed another man any part of herself that it would cheapen
Gilbert’s memory. But it was worse. She had forgotten him entirely.

She had betrayed everything she was. And she had liked it. Already her body craved more.

“Lucas,” she said, sliding her hands to his chest and pushing while she tried to ignore how good it felt to touch him even now. “No, get off.”

He lifted his head and his eyes locked with hers, dark with remnants of desire. But the moment he saw her face, the desire was replaced by frustration. With a sigh, he rolled away to let her get up. She snatched at her chemise, holding it as a shield before her.

Lucas had no such qualms about his nudity. As if to defy her modesty, he rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head. He stared at her.

“You don’t have to run away from what happened, Ana,” he said softly.

She tried to avoid his stare as she pulled the chemise over her head. Now that her aching body was covered, she at least felt some level of control returning to her. Not that she wasn’t fully aware that a thin scrap of silk was no barrier to her own desires.

As had been proven tonight.

“You did nothing wrong,” he insisted.

She shook her head. “I did everything wrong,” she murmured as she searched for her dress. The pretty new gown was now in a wrinkled pile a few feet away. “Oh, I’ve done everything, everything wrong!”

He sat up, the frustration replaced by full-blown anger. “Don’t say that, Ana. Don’t ever say that!”

“It was a mistake,” she whispered as tears stung her eyes.

But somehow it didn’t feel like a mistake. Even now, staring at Lucas, feeling the heat of his passion and his anger as he got to his feet totally nude, what they had shared felt anything but wrong.

“I told you that you could say no,” he reminded her, his shoulders stiff.

She looked at him. “I know that. I don’t blame you.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “I blame myself. I should have taken that offer to pull away.”

But it wasn’t just that she
hadn’t
said no. It was that, when Lucas touched her, she
couldn’t
say no.

And that was why it never should have happened. Why it could never be repeated.

P
ain slashed through Lucas’s body, so hard and harsh that it surprised him. He didn’t think he could feel something so intense. Not when it came to a woman. But with this woman, everything was different.

This night had been powerful for him. He wasn’t going to try to deny that fact. Touching Ana, taking her body, had been different from any other experience in his life. And despite her protestations now, after the fact, that it was a mistake, he knew it was powerful for her, too. That was why she was scared.

That was why she was running.

He watched as she struggled to get into her gown and frustration replaced the pain. Why, he didn’t
know. It wasn’t as if he expected more from her. It wasn’t as if he wanted more.

But he was still angry. He grabbed for his own discarded trousers and stepped into them.

“Does the memory of a dead man keep you warm?” he snapped as he fastened his waistband.

Ana had her gown halfway over her hips when she froze. Slowly, she turned to face him, her skin as pale as porcelain. He could see how deeply he’d cut her and regretted it, but he was too angry to withdraw the question…and too curious about her response.

“How dare you?” Her whisper was harsh in the quiet.

“No, I really want to know. Was your husband so damned perfect that his corpse is preferable to a flesh and blood man? Or is it that you are so afraid to want”—he took a long step toward her, crowding her on purpose—“to
need—
”

She stiffened as he reached for her and caught her shoulders in an inescapable grip.

“—to change, that you will use him as a shield any time your boundaries are pressed?”

“You don’t know a thing.” Her breath came in heaving gasps between each word.

“Yes, my dear, I’m afraid I do, despite your attempts to keep a wall between us.” He yanked and she stumbled against his chest, her dress falling from her hands as she tried to push away. He held tight, keeping her pressed against him and loving the feel of her body
against his, regardless of the circumstances. “I know that when I touch you, you quiver. That I can take you over the edge with just a flick of my wrist. That you surge up to meet me when I drive deep inside you.”

“Stop,” Ana whispered as she twisted in his arms.

But he couldn’t let her go. He had been driven to the edge of reason, of sanity, a place he’d never been before. He was out of control. The gentleman inside him, the one that normally would have released her in frustration, had been crushed by her harsh words of rejection, and now he wanted to press her, push her, force her to see what she was so afraid to face.

No matter what the cost.

“Did
he
ever do that for you?” he demanded and found himself praying her answer would be in the negative.

She shook in his arms, her eyes wide and wild…but he saw want in them as well as fury and confusion. And the answer he sought also sparkled in the depths of her stare. Lucas knew, just by her expression, that he was the only man who had ever brought her to such heights. Had ever made her lose herself so completely.

That accomplishment brought powerful triumph crashing through him and tempered his frustration.

“He is dead, Ana,” he said softly. “Climb out of the grave you have put yourself in beside him. You know you want more.”

She shook her head and her voice took on an edge of desperation, like she was trying to convince herself
of her feelings more than him. “No. No, I loved him. Pleasure is nothing compared to that. I can’t let
wanting
make me forget.”

With a shove against his chest, she wrenched herself free. Lucas could have caught her, but he let her go. He was too stung to hold her.

Pleasure was nothing to a dead love and she was driven to cling to it, even if it meant cutting off her life. Cutting him off.

Why did that hurt so much?

They stared at each other for a long moment and then he turned away so she wouldn’t see just what those words did to him.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” He stared at the dying fire with unseeing eyes. “You never let yourself forget for a moment that you are a widow.
His
widow. No one else can forget either.”

Behind him, she gasped, but he didn’t move. He could not stand to look at her and have her deny him. Deny passion. Deny whatever else was boiling between them.

The silence stretched for a long time, but finally she cleared her throat.

“I came here tonight because I thought of something.”

Slowly, he turned. She had pulled her dress up and was in the process of buttoning it. Her mouth was still swollen from his kisses and her chest still flushed from the release he had given her, but her expression was
detached. As calm a mask as any seasoned spy he’d ever worked with.

“Did you?” His voice was hard as ice.

She hesitated for a moment at his tone, but then nodded. “I am beginning to wonder if someone inside the War Department could be involved in the attacks on the spies.”

Lucas froze, his anger and disappointment fading at that stunning statement. As much as it sickened him, he could not dismiss it immediately.

“Why do you believe that?” he asked, metering his tone.

“From the information I’ve been given, it seems like many of the attacks were on spies who were deeply hidden from public view. Their identities would be difficult to ascertain without inside knowledge. As would be their meeting places. Clearly there are common meeting arrangements in your organization, but some of these men were attacked at parties, even in their own homes. Places no one should have been laying in wait hoping to catch a spy off guard.”

Lucas nodded. He hated to admit it, but her theory made sense.

“The attackers do always seem to be one step ahead of our spies,” he murmured. “They often attack when our men are close to breaks in their cases. Someone on the inside would have access to that kind of information.”

“Selling that kind of information to our enemies
could be very lucrative for a person in financial difficulty…or even someone who was just greedy,” she said with a nod.

Her discomfort seemed to dissipate as they moved away from the subject of the sex they had just indulged in and toward the relative safety of their case, where they could pretend not to have any personal relationship. Bitterness surged in him, but he tamped it down. This was business now.

Pleasure was over.

“It’s a plausible theory. I will do some investigation into the possibility.”

She lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes sparkled with emotions, and he found himself drawn to her despite the knowledge that she was afraid of what they’d shared. That she wanted to deny it meant anything.

“I have an idea of whom you could investigate.”

He started. “What? You don’t know the War Department as well as I do. Who could you possibly suspect?”

She hesitated again, and it put every fiber of his being on edge. What in the world could she be holding back? What could make her shift her weight with nervousness and refuse to meet his eyes?

Finally, she whispered, “I believe it might be Lord Cliffield.”

“Henry?”

Ana winced at the loud, angry, and incredulous tone of Lucas’s voice. It seemed all she could expect from
him tonight was passion, whether it be angry or otherwise. She shivered as he stared at her, blinking like he wasn’t sure he had understood her correctly.

She nodded.

He barked out a harsh laugh. “Henry Bowerly, the blasted Marquis of Cliffield? My best friend? The man who was nearly killed in the first attack?” He stared at her. “And
that
is who you suspect is behind the attacks on the spies?”

She tensed under his mocking look, but didn’t turn away. She’d expected as much, she even understood it, though she didn’t like the way he looked at her like she had lost her mind. After all, Lucas had seen his best friend bleed. He’d held Henry and prayed he would survive an assassin’s bullet.

Just as she had when Emily was attacked. She could only imagine that if the tables were turned…if Lucas came to her with accusations against Emily or Meredith, she would react with much the same disbelief.

She drew in a few long breaths to stay calm. It was all she could do. Tonight Lucas had tempted her with potent desire, challenged her with angry lust, and now he was denying her with utter contempt. And all the while he was standing mere feet away from her wearing only loosely buttoned trousers. His hands were firmly planted on trim, muscular hips, which only drew her attention to the subtle ripple of his stomach muscles each time he drew a harsh breath.

And made her recall, in vivid detail, the reason he
was standing with no shirt, no boots, his hair wild from the way her fingers had combed through it at the height of passion.

She blinked away the images of his mouth on hers, his body filling her. This was no time to allow distraction. Especially since she had so adamantly denied those things had meaning to her.

“I—I realize this is a shock to you,” she murmured, trying to look anywhere but his half-naked body. “You may not want to believe—”

He cut her off by biting out, “I
don’t
believe it.”

“Lucas—” she started.

“No.” He shook his head when she tried to speak again. “
No
, Ana. I have known Henry since I was eight years old.”

“I’m aware of that.” She stepped up to him and reached out before she considered the consequences of such an action. When her fingers touched his bare arm, a spark ran up her spine. His skin was warm beneath hers and more of those heated images flooded through her mind, unwelcome, but oh, so pleasurable to recall.

Lucas tilted his head and met her gaze. His stare was one of challenge, daring her to keep touching him. Daring her to pull away.

She did, yanking her fingers back as if he burned her.

“I am aware of that,” she repeated, managing to keep some semblance of control. “But the fact you’ve known Henry most of your life is exactly why you may be blind to the truth.”

“I am not blind, Anastasia. You have been in the field for what…all of two weeks? And yet you think you have uncovered the answer to questions my organization has been pursuing for a year or more?” He barked out a laugh that was anything but kind or humor-filled. The confrontation in his stare doubled.

She stiffened. He was mocking her and her abilities. “I may not have been in the field as long as you have been, but I
have
been involved in many investigations before. I have intuition, Lucas. And whether or not you want to see it at this very moment, I also have ability.”

She froze as she heard the words come from her lips. For the first time, she believed them. For the first time since she’d been approached by Charlie, she had faith in her skills. When had that happened? And how?

Lucas’s snort of disbelief cut off her thoughts. Tears sprung to her eyes at his look of incredulity. She hadn’t realized until that moment how important his confidence in her had become. His praise was something she’d come to depend on. And even though she knew his present attitude had more to do with her reaction after they made love and her accusations toward Henry, it still tore through her with surprising pain.

Part of her wanted to run and hide, but for the first time, a stronger part of her made her stay.

“He kept facts of the case from you.”

Lucas waved a hand. “Enough of this.”

She trembled, but pressed on. “And he conjured up evidence for which you have no source.”

“No—”

It took everything in her to continue in the face of his angry refusals, but somehow she did it. “He is the one who assigned the spies, Lucas! All of them who went to their deaths were sent there by him.
He
knew their movements.
He
had all the facts of their cases. He told me that himself tonight, but when he let that information slip, I saw panic in his eyes.” Now it was she who stepped toward him and he who retreated back. “I may not know much, but I know what I saw.”

He folded his arms. Gone was the gentle spark in his eyes. And the smile she’d come to anticipate was also long gone. The man before her was hard and cold as steel. Unbendable. Untouchable.

“There are other explanations.”

Ana stared at him, surprised by how painful the distance he now put between them was. There would be no reasoning with him tonight. Not when he was so hell bent on denying her suspicions.

“I can see you are angry. You don’t want to believe this to be true. Perhaps I should just go and leave you to consider what I’ve said.”

His eyes narrowed. “Yes, that is probably best.”

Shaking her head, she made for the door, but before she left, she looked over her shoulder.

“Please think about it, Lucas. Because even if you refuse to look into my theories, they have merit. And if you don’t pursue them, I will.”

Before he could answer, she left, shutting the door behind her. Outside in the hallway, she leaned against the barrier that now separated them. But even if the door hadn’t been between them, they were clearly leagues apart. Tonight had changed the fragile relationship they’d been building. Not just the argument they’d had, but making love and his challenges regarding Gilbert, as well. Nothing would ever be the same again.

What did that mean? And why did it frighten her so much?

She wasn’t sure. The only thing she was sure of was that he was the most frustrating man she had ever met. And she could not deny that he’d given her the most wonderful night of her life.

Meredith held up the tea pot in offering, first to Ana, then to Tristan. Both of them shook their heads. Meredith splashed a bit in her own cup, then returned to the little round table in her parlor. She sat down between her husband and Ana, and gave her friend a smile.

Ana wished she could return the smile with one so broad and free of tangled emotions, but it was impossible. As pleasant as it was to sit in Meredith and Tristan’s home, her mind was constantly turning, burning with memory, aching with doubt and possibility.